If You’re A Landlord, You need this Coverage…
If you own property that you rent to others, you have to carry a Landlord policy which covers the building, other structures on the property, loss of income, and liability. You also need to make sure your tenants carry a Renters policy, as well. Their renters policy covers their personal property inside your property, but it also has liability coverage that would potentially cover claims they caused due to their negligence.
How does this work?
Let’s say your tenant left the bath tub running and cause damage to your unit and even potentially another unit. Or maybe they left a candle burning that caused a fire that damaged your unit and other units if you owned multiple family units. Due to the tenants negligence, which is basically a way to say their irresponsibility caused the claim, then their renters policy should cover that under the liability coverage. This would possibly help the landlord by not having to turn the claim in on their own landlord policy, which helps keep your premium lower as a landlord by not having claims against you.
All claims are not going to be handled the same way, but if you require your tenants to carry this type of policy, you are adding another level of protection to yourself and your rental business. Honestly, a renters policy is very inexpensive for your tenants, some can be as little as $10/mo. Plus that’s protection for your tenants personal property they need to have anyways.
Landlords, you need to make sure you have the right property coverage in place for your landlord policy and you need to make sure your tenants carry their own renters policy. One more quick thing, you should probably ask them to send you a copy of the declaration page yearly or a Certificate of Insurance from their agent just to make sure they didn’t let the policy cancel or lapse.